Misrecognition

“Misrecognition in public has a profound impact on the private self”

The way in which an individual is treated by others can reaffirm their sense of self and create many other positive impacts. Such as a sense of community, body positivity, and feeling appreciated. All of these things give a person a better quality of life and affect them in positive ways related to feeling valued. However, when a person is not validated, but instead constantly critiqued for not fitting a socially constructed standard of what is normal it can have lasting negative effects. A person may not feel comfortable in their own skin, have self loathing traits, or doubt their abilities when they were never in question in the first place. Specifically in this blog I will outline why the line misrecognition in public has a profound impact on the private self is the most important sentence in the readings through explaining what it’s impacts are.

Within the article that this line is found by Melissa Harris Perry the concept discussed is how black women in society are almost placed mentally inside this crooked room. This happens through the concept of altering reality through social constructions. Due to the historical context of black women in America in today’s world there are three specific depictions of stereotypes of black women in content that is produced…. Normally by white people. Those three stereotypes are the mammy, jezebel, and sapphire. The mother, the sex idol, and the angry black woman. These depictions of black women from a socially constructed perspective has actually engulfed itself into actual society through people having more experience with these stereotypes than an actual humanly complex black woman. Then these depictions affect the way in which people treat actual black women. Which leads to essential dehumanization of individuals. In the reading it said that 80% of black women are negatively affected by those depictions. This is an example of how we can see misrecognition of a person’s actual identity can have of their private selves.

In society outside of the context of the reading there are other ways in which misrecognition can hurt a person’s private self. If a young fem teenage boy is in school expressing themselves and a fellow student harasses them for the ways in which he acts differently, it could make a person reassess themselves. One they may wonder what sort of actions that they did for them to be considered gay. Another thing is that previously to that comment they may not have thought there was anything wrong with being gay (which there isn’t) but the way in which the bully spoke their name calling makes an individual question themselves. Once an individual is misrecognized and not accepted as themselves it starts to have negative affects on that person's well being.